The orb off Yemen is the piece of footage John Kiriakou offers when asked what he makes of the American military’s released UFO videos, and it is the closest he comes to endorsing any of the material.
The prior question
A viewer had asked whether he believed Steven Greer’s claims that the government is hiding evidence about aliens. Kiriakou declined to affirm them. “I don’t know to tell you the truth. I mean, if there is evidence, it’s being tightly held at the Pentagon.”[1]
The video
Asked instead about the videos the US Air Force had released some five years earlier, Kiriakou reached for a more recent leak. “There was one that was leaked uh in September that is dramatic.”[2]
His description is of a sustained engagement rather than a glimpse. “It’s it’s two uh F-18s uh following a UFO, an orb, a silver orb off the coast of Yemen, and they’re talking about it back and forth. The camera never leaves the orb.”[2]
What follows is what makes the footage remarkable to him. “And they’re given permission to fire at it. It was a Hellfire missile, Sidewinder missile, one or the other. And you see the missile hit the thing and the missile just bounces off and the orb just changes direction by by 90 degrees and just keeps flying.”[2]
He does not resolve which weapon was used, and says so.[2]
Evidence and proof
Kiriakou’s conclusion is a deliberate distinction between two words. “I mean, look, there’s definitely evidence. Is there proof? There’s not proof, but there’s evidence.”[3]
The formulation is characteristic of how he handles the subject generally. He does not claim knowledge he did not have inside the agency, he does not dismiss the material, and he restricts himself to what is on the tape — an object that took a missile strike, did not break up, and changed course at a right angle.[1][3]